Reading Report: 08 February 2026

ファタモルガーナの館 現代編

ファタモルガーナの館 現代編

I finally finished the bulk of what one would reasonably call "The Fata Morgana canon". Overall I think playing the prequel and sequel did more harm to my enjoyment of the series than if I had just stopped at the base game. The sequel and prequel both felt like they were missing something important from the base game, but each was missing something different so it's hard which I enjoyed (or didn't) more. The prequel had a much more focused story, but so much of it felt like it was just added to make the story longer. I liked it as the best version of Jacopo's story at least. The sequel had a few nice quality of life features, and it finally offers something conclusive for the main characters of the game, but it's also just another retelling of the three doors' drama. I love Mel and Nellie but they really didn't add anything meaningful to make it worth exploring. I think I would have preferred for the story to just skip all the messing around and just lean into the cheesy end-game when the main couples were already together. At least Jacopo and Morgana's story was something of a continuation rather than just a repetition of their story, and it felt like it was finally seen through to the end.

銀河鉄道の夜

I don't want this week to be too negative, but this book just didn't do it for me. I had a few personal problems with the writing style, like for example the weird balance of kana and kanji (perhaps explained by it being a book for younger audiences), but overall I think my issues were just with how the story was paced. Most of the story is told within the train and is just conversations the two main characters have with strangers. Characters sort of just pop in and out of the story to voice their thoughts about the latest celestial or terrestrial sight that the train goes by, and then eventually the train returns home and there's a bit of rhyming with the opening.

The biggest upside is that now I've finished two books out of my goal of twelve for the year, and February has just started.

機動戦士Zガンダム

I finished up this series early in the week. I really enjoyed revisiting the Rozami parts, and loved to see my favourite mobile suit, Baund Doc, in full force. I don't have too much else to say. It was fun but I don't really care about Scirocco Paptimus.

スーパーロボット大戦Ｙ

After finishing up Fata Morgana Sequel I decided to give this entry in the SRW series a try. I was going to play a bit of SRW EX as well but I ended up starved for game time later in the week and just decided to just focus on this instead of splitting my focus.

I chose to play as the girl character. I watched the prologue which featured the "Assassination of Lelouch vi Britannia" from the end of Code Geass R2, and then the story introduced Echika Y Franburnett and her caretaker, Annina. Their town is attacked but it turns out Echika's dad turned the whole place into a floating fortress before he died, so the mothership of SRW Y is literally a floating dome city. It's pretty cool. After finishing the first mission I also did the second mission. I chose to go through the Getter Robo Arc path because I believe in Getter.

On a side note, it's really annoying how much Bandai limits screenshotting and recording the game with Switch hardware. Screenshots are disabled on some screens and when you can screenshot a really obnoxious, big watermark is put on the top-left corner of the image. Also video recording is completely blocked. It makes absolutely no sense why they do this. I literally just want to spread the love of the series and super robots...

無限のリヴァイアス

This anime was put on my radar when I was looking up other anime with character designs by Hirai Hisashi. I also plan to watch 蒼穹のファフナー this year. I sort of expected it to be a robot anime but it's actually (mostly) a spaceship anime. The basic plot is that a ship crewed mostly by children and a few adults is attacked, causing the deaths of all the adults on board. The children's only hope seems to be figuring out how to navigate back home to Earth, and each episode they learn more about their mega powerful spaceship, the Ryvius. Also their spaceship has a pretty cool remote-control robot called Vital Guarder. The way it works is nothing like any robot I've seen before, so I think that's pretty cool. Also the hip-hop inspired soundtrack is really cool. Basically the series has a lot going for it. However... the episodes themselves are just a bit slow and messy. I sort of wish it had more of a focus character, but instead there are more than a dozen characters. I imagine it's probably a pretty cool story if you can follow it all, but for now it might be one of those "skill issues" shows.

有害図書の本

I just started reading this book and I'm still on the opening chapter, but I thought it was worth mentioning since I've started it at all. This is a book about media (mostly books) considered "harmful" for societal health, in particular for the healthy upbringing of young people in Japan. Basically it's yet another book about erotic media because it's just an interesting topic for me to read.